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Houston man executed for
killing 5 in family
From Houston Chronicle
HUNTSVILLE -- Professing his innocence,
a Houston man accused of
murdering five members of his family,
including his parents, in a scheme to collect an inheritance almost 10
years ago was executed this evening.
"I'm innocent. I had absolutely nothing
to do with my family's murder,"
Robert Coulson, 33, said, strapped
to the death chamber gurney.
Coulson then thanked those who supported
him, adding, "I hope you
continue to fight. You know who you
are."
After thanking the warden and as the
drugs began taking effect, he
spotted Dale Atchetee, a former Houston
police officer involved in the
murder investigation, and told him,
"You know you planted that evidence.
You know and I know."
Coulson gasped slightly and slipped
into unconsciousness. He was
pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m., nine
minutes after the lethal dose began.
Coulson was condemned for killing his
sister and brother-in-law in a
murder spree that also included another
sister and his adoptive mother
and father. The victims were suffocated
or fatally beaten with a crowbar,
then bound with tape and plastic ties
and burned.
Firefighters responding to the blaze
at the home of Otis Coulson, 66,
and his wife, Mary, 54, found the bodies.
Also killed were their
daughter, Sarah, 21; Robert Coulson's
biological sister, Robin
Wentworth, 25; and her husband, Richard,
27.
Robert Coulson attended their funerals
a few days after the Nov. 13,
1992, slayings. Hours later, he was
arrested for their deaths.
Evidence showed two days after the killings,
he called the family
attorney, inquiring about the size
of the inheritance. It was $600,000.
"He wanted the money," Harris County
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal
said.
Coulson was the 17th Texas inmate to
die this year and the first of two
this week. The 17 executions equals
the total number of lethal
injections in Texas last year.
Earlier Tuesday, the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles rejected
Coulson's requests for a reprieve,
a commutation and a conditional
pardon. Vote on each was 17-0.
"People saw him rub his eyes to make
them red but no one saw him shed
any tears," Rosenthal recalled Coulson's
conduct at the funeral. "We had
police officers watch the funeral and
watch him. At one point, he walked
his girlfriend to her car, watched
her drive away, then Bob did this
little dance before he went into the
church...
"I think the jury hated him."
Coulson's roommate at the time of the
murders, Jared Althaus, told
police he took Coulson to and from
the house that day. He later helped
investigators build the case.
"I agreed to assist Bob in this crime
because he told me we would never
have to worry about money as long as
I was with him," Althaus said in
his confession.
"It's infuriating," Coulson said from
death row, denying any involvement
in the slayings. "I haven't had a fair
day in court."
Coulson called Althaus' confession a
lie, saying authorities took
advantage of his roommate's mental
and emotional problems to force him
to lie.
"It's a bogus case," he insisted.
Authorities said Coulson, carrying out
a plan he and Althaus had worked
on for three months, telephoned each
victim and told them he'd meet them
at a particular time at the family's
northwest Houston home.
Then they were systematically killed.
Their hands and feet were bound,
plastic trash bags were tied over their
heads and gasoline was poured on
the corpses.
Althaus said Coulson told him a stun
gun purchased to incapacitate the
family members didn't work properly
after the first two were killed, so
he had to suffocate his mother with
a pillow and use a crowbar to
fatally beat two others. Then a water
heater prematurely ignited the
fire because of fumes from gasoline.
"Bob jumped into the car and said: 'It
went all wrong. It didn't go the
way I planned it,'" Althaus said.
Coulson had no previous criminal record.
Authorities said he had been
having financial problems, a contention
Coulson denied. He said a
business proposition fell through but
not because of his own lack of
money.
"My dad had agreed to loan me the money," he said from death row.
Althaus was sentenced to 10 years in
prison in exchange for his 1994
guilty plea to murder.
In February 1997, a probate jury assessed
$25.6 million in damages
against Coulson and Althaus for the
killings, but a judge later reduced
the verdict to $13.6 million. Lawyers
said the monetary award was
largely symbolic but resulted in Coulson
relinquishing his right to half
the $600,000 inheritance.
The inheritance went to Sarah Coulson's
son, who she had put up for
adoption a month after his birth.
Set to die Wednesday is Jeffrey Lynn
Williams, convicted of the 1994
rape-slaying of a Houston woman.
Robert Coulson is days
away from execution in Texas. Coulson was convicted of murdering
his sister and four members
of his adopted family in order to collect inheritance money.
Is he the greedy killer
he is accused of being or a man wrongfully convicted with the
skimpiest of evidence?
By Robert Anthony Phillips - June 18, 2002
What about, Bob?
Depending on who you talk
to, Robert Coulson is either a polite,
wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly-
looking killer who murdered his sister and four
members of his adopted
family in Texas in a greedy attempt to collect
$600,000 of the inheritance
money or a victim of lies, skimpy evidence
and prosecutorial misconduct
that has him within days of execution.
The date is June 25. At
about 6 p.m. on that day, Coulson is scheduled
to be ushered into the
well-used death house in Huntsville and given a
lethal injection for
the 1992 murders of Otis and Mary Coulson, who
adopted him; his birth
sister, Robin, who was pregnant, and her husband
Rick Wentworth; and his
other adopted sister, Sarah. He was tried and
sentenced to death for
the murders of the Wentworths.
The victims were found
inside the Spring Branch home of Otis and Mary
Coulson on Nov. 13, 1992.
All had been bound and suffocated with plastic
garbage bags, prosecutors
said. Gasoline had been poured on the victims
in an attempt to burn
the bodies and the house after the murders.
Coulson, now 34, was convicted
and sentenced to death based on the
testimony of his former
roommate, Jared Althaus, who said he helped
Coulson plan the slayings
and then dispose of evidence. Coulson’s
supporters say Althaus
is a proven liar.
But, it appears Robert
Coulson’s lawyers have no last minute appeals up
their sleeves, saying
they are hoping that the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles will look
favorably on a conditional pardon request or grant
the condemned man a reprieve.
The words “fat chance”
seem appropriate for that petition. This is a
board that has watched
as 270 convicted killers were marched into the
death house after making
paper airplanes out of such petitions from most
of them. Telling the
board you are:
· Sorry for the
murder(s).
· Have been a
good boy on death row.
· Are a changed
man or woman (see Karla Faye Tucker).
· Were an abused
child.
· The victim of
a lawyer who fell asleep at trial or was incompetent.
· Innocent although
convicted by a jury.
· All of the above.
Suffice to say, those excuses don't cut it in Texas.
“I think at this point,
I don’t anticipate any further appeals,” said J.
Gary Hart, Coulson's
appeals lawyer. “That’s not to say something might
not come up. His clemency
petition has been filed.”
Very grim for Bob, indeed.
But there is a Web site
to plead Coulson’s case. It is called Freebob .
The site shows that Coulson
is not being looked at by everyone as a
killer. Then again, maybe
he is. Several of his supporters aren't really
sure.
The problem with the case
against Robert Coulson, they say, is that
there was no biological,
physical or forensic evidence directly linking
him to the murders. He
did not confess. There were no scratches or burn
marks on his body. Items
used in the murder could not be directly linked
to him.
Coulson claimed he was
at a local mall, where he had gone to meet his
family for dinner, when
the murders were committed.
And, most importantly,
he was put on death row based on the testimony of
his former roommate,
Althaus. Althaus served five years of a 10 year prison
sentence, in return for
his testimony fingering Coulson as the killer.
He has been called, in
the most polite terms, a liar. Supporters of Coulson - and Coulson himself
- believe they can point out at least 200 instances in his testimony where
he lied to
police and on the witness
stand.
Initially lied to police
Althaus is a guy, critics
of case against Coulson say, who can’t quite
figure out whether he
grew up in the neighborhood where the murders
occurred and even has
trouble deciding if he roomed with Coulson eight
months or for a year
before the murders. Then there is a little matter
of trying to remember
whether he tossed a crowbar, reportedly used to
bludgeon at least one
of the victims, out the window of the car as he
and Robert Coulson were
driving to the country after the murders.
You would tend to remember such things, one would think.
Althaus also failed a lie detector test during one of his confessions to police.
This all leads supporters
of Coulson to ask: Is this guy’s testimony
enough to send someone
to the Huntsville death house?
Sabine Hauer, an Austrian
woman who started the “Freebob” Web site,
doesn’t think so. She
says that maybe Bob Coulson did do it, or maybe he
didn’t. The point is,
she said, the state just didn’t have enough
evidence.
“I’m not able to tell
you for one hundred percent that Bob did not kill
his family, but I can
tell you, that the state did not prove it,” Hauer
said. “They had done
a bad job or they wanted to have anybody on death
row - but they only came
up with lies.
“I am against the death
penalty in every case. I do not know how any
human being can believe
he has the right to kill any other human being,
even when the other human
being is a killer. I also try to help the
guilty ones, but it is
for sure easier with a case like the case of Bob Coulson.”
The “Freebob” web site
outlines and attempts to refute the case against
Coulson, who delivered
spring water for a living before prosecutors said
he tried a get rich quick
scheme by murdering his family. Hauer said the
Web site content was
put together based on documents and transcripts
supplied by Bob Coulson
and his lawyers.
Coulson’s natural father
has also joined the fray to try to save the
life of his son, sending
a letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and
Paroles asking that his
son be spared from execution and criticizing the
state and its death penalty
machine. Bennett had signed papers years
ago allowing both of
his natural children, Robert and Robin, to be
adopted.
But, the bad news for
Bob Coulson is that a jury and Harris County
District Attorney Charles
Rosenthal thought there was enough evidence to
prove him a killer. Rosenthal
is convinced that Coulson did it and is
glad that he is about
to be executed, calling him a “charming con man”
and “pathological liar.”
Would not give up rights to estate
This is a man, Rosenthal
said, who was convicted of murdering his
family, sent to death
row and then fought a decision to cut him out of
the $600,000 inheritance
in the estate.
Yes, it was the ultimate
in bad taste. In 1997, while on death row,
Coulson refused to sign
away the rights to the Coulson’ family estate.
To prevent Coulson in
any way from cashing in, Linda Payne, the executor
of the estate and niece
of the Otis and Mary Coulson, filed a wrongful death lawsuit
against Bob Coulson and
Althaus, winning a $11.3 million judgment.
Coulson showed up for
the wrongful death trial, complete in an orange
prison suit, to act as
his own attorney. During questioning of potential
jurors, Coulson uttered
the now immortal question: “Just because I am a
convicted murderer on
death row, would you hold that against me in this
trial?"
The Associated Press reported
that 27 of the 75 people in the jury pool
said the would.
Coulson, not to anyone’s
great surprise, lost the case and was cut out
of the will. Back to
death row he went with no checks forthcoming in the
mail.
“I’ve tried a number of
death penalty cases when person on trial got the
death penalty, and its
a weird deal,” said Rosenthal. “While on the one
hand you feel good that
a jury came back and did what you asked them to
do, you also feel that
you don’t want to celebrate someone getting a
death sentence...."
“But of all the death
penalty cases I’ve tried, there has been only two
that I felt elation (the
Coulson death sentence and another). I felt
like what he did was
so completely heartless and there wasn’t any kind
of remorse for having
snuffed out their lives.”
But Althaus also testified
in the wrongful death trial - questioned by
Robert Coulson himself.
It was during his testimony that Coulson’s supporters pointed
out the “lies” Althaus
had told on the stand during Coulson’s criminal
trial and to police when
initially questioned.
Used stun gun
Prosecutors believe, based
on the testimony of Althaus, that Coulson
used a stun gun to subdue
his family members, bound them and suffocated
them all by placing plastic
bags over their heads. He doused the house
and bodies with gasoline
and set fire to it. After the murders, Althaus
testified that he picked
Coulson up and the two drove to a farmhouse
north of Houston to spend
the weekend. Althaus claims that Robert
Coulson later described
to him how he went about murdering his family.
Rosenthal said that Coulson
first killed Otis and Mary Coulson and then
went after Sarah, telling
her was going to kill her and why - for the
inheritance money. Coulson
even went over the house before the murders
to make sure he was in
the will, Althaus claimed, and stashed several
items he was going to
use in the murders in the attic.
The last to reportedly
arrive at the house for dinner were Coulson’s
birth sister, Robin and
her husband, Rick Wentworth. Coulson supposedly
struck Rick Wentworth,
a large man who was a Harris County deputy
sheriff, and Robin with
a crowbar, Rosenthal said.
Before the murders, Althaus
said that Coulson made sure he had plenty of
supplies, including a
gas can filled with gas, garbage bags, binding
materials and other assorted
accouterments for murder. Some items had
been hidden in the house
before the murders, Althaus claimed.
Althaus said he did not participate in the murders inside the house.
However there are a couple
of problems with this story. One is the
crowbar. Critics point
out that the crowbar was recovered and no blood
was found on it. However,
just because you hit someone with a crowbar
doesn’t mean you are
going to draw blood.
Rosenthal also says that
Robert Coulson arranged to have the Wentworths’
arrive late because Rick
Wentworth was a large man and he wanted
everyone else dead so
he could devote his full attention to killing him.
However, a neighbor said
that the Wentworths’ car was parked in the
Coulson’s driveway at
3:30 p.m. - along with the rest of the family
vehicles. The murders
supposedly occurred between 4 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.
In addition, Robin Wentworth
answered the phone at 4:45 p.m., saying the
family was on its way
to dinner.
The mysterious moving envelope
Another issue raising
commotion in the case is an envelope that was moved.
The envelope contained
notes Otis Coulson had made outlining conditions
for lending Robert Coulson
money to start a windshield repair business.
A police photographer
supposedly photographed the envelope containing
the letter lying in plain
view on top of a desk in the Coulson home.
Rosenthal used this letter
and the photograph to indicate to the jury
that Otis Coulson had
expected his adopted son at the house the night of
the murders to discuss
the business deal. Therefore, he had the letter
ready on the desk.
Coulson claims he was
at a local mall, where he had gone to meet his
adoptive parents and
family for dinner. When they did not show, he said
he called the house and
got no answer. Coulson said he and Althaus then
left to spend the weekend
about 100 miles from Houston. On witness
testified at the trial
that it was common practice for the family to
meet on Fridays and then
go out to dinner.
However as it turned out,
the letter was actually found under other
papers. Rosenthal said
he told the police to photograph documents on the
desk. Rosenthal came
to the crime scene the night the bodies were
discovered.
An officer, Rosenthal
said, pulled the letter out of the pile to
photograph it. The bottom
line: The evidence was moved and presented as
if it had been photographed
exactly where it was placed
Rosenthal admitted the
mistake, saying it was his fault for not stating
at trial that the envelope
had been pulled out from a pile of papers.
Coulson’s appeals attorney,
Hart, said that so far, the courts have
rejected appeals to give
Coulson a new trial based on claims of
fabricating evidence.
He said besides the testimony
from Althaus, the prosecution used statements
Coulson had given to
friends and “twisted them around” in an attempt to
convince the jury -successfully
that Coulson did, indeed, commit the murders.
Rosenthal said that many
of the things Coulson did following the murders
placed more suspicion
on him.
“When I got to the police
barrier, a man and woman were standing next to
me and I heard the guy
say to the woman, “If Bob ain’t in there, he did
it.” said Rosenthal.
Rosenthal said that lawmen
were immediately suspicious of Althaus and
Coulson after they gave
statements to police that were “carbon copies”
of one another.
After the murders, red
flags were also raised when Coulson called a
relative living in another
state, Payne, and asked her to come to Texas
to quickly settle the
estate. Police also wired Althaus during a meeting
in a hotel he had with
Coulson, recording him telling Althaus to stick
to the alibis and that
the police were “stupid,” Rosenthal said.
Payne also thought Coulson’s
behavior strange.
She said that a few days
after the murders, she was inside the Coulson’s
home and Bob Coulson
came in with several neighborhood “boys to give
them a tour of the house
where the bodies had been.”
Payne is convinced that
Coulson murdered his family.
“He always showed signs
of being self-centered, greedy and wanting more
than he had,” said Payne.
“My aunt and uncle were wonderful people.
Nobody would have been
interested in murdering them. Bob was the only
person with access to
them. Bob was familiar with their routines....”
Adopted children
Bob Coulson and his sister,
Robin, were adopted by the Coulson family as
children. The couple
also adopted another child, Sarah. Otis Coulson was
retired from an oil company
and spent time doing volunteer work. Payne
said her aunt and uncle
lived “very simple lives.” Both Payne and
Rosenthal said that Robert
Coulson always made fun of his adopted
father, frequently
calling him a “rube” and unsophisticated.
Robert Bennett, Robin
and Robert Coulson’s natural father, said he is
opposed to his son’s
execution - although his son was convicted of
murdering his other natural
daughter. He is facing an ugly decision: He
has one child that was
convicted of killing the other and now the state
say that child must die.
Bennett declined to be
interviewed for this article, but sent The Death
House a copy of a letter
he wrote to the Texas Board of Pardons and
Paroles. In the letter,
he asks that his son be spared from execution.
He also told of the “guilt”
he has felt over the years for allowing his
children to be put up
for adoption, blaming Texas for pushing him to do
so.
Is testimony from a co-conspirator enough?
Coulson’s supporters believe
that Althaus, initially suspected by the
police of taking part
in the murders, became scared under intense police
questioning and fingered
his roommate and one time high school classmate
as the killer.
Rosenthal points out that
Althaus helped lawmen recover several pieces
of evidence used in the
murders-including a gasoline can and parts of a
gun. Rosenthal also admitted
that when Althaus was first questioned, he
lied to police but later
told them the
“truth” about the murders.
“We knew he wasn’t telling
the truth (when he was first questioned),” said Rosenthal.
“That’s what a polygraph
does. It is an investigative tool. (Althaus)
had not implicated himself
to anything. He said he had dropped Bob off,
picked him up and then
he started throwing things out the window.
He had no idea what was
going on. He didn’t know anything.
When they tell you they
don’t have any culpability and are close to the situation,
you know they are lying
to you. Very seldom do they tell the truth the first time.”
Liar, Liar
At the Freebob Web site,
Coulson’s supporters write extensively about
the testimony given by
Althaus at both the criminal and the wrongful
death trials. Coulson
and his supporters, after reviewing the
transcripts of the trials,
claim to have found about 200 instances were
Althaus contradicted
himself and “lied.”
“The purpose of this document
is to show the world how many times Jared
Althaus has lied and
changed his story against Bob Coulson,” the Freebob
ssite states.
For example, at the trial,
Althaus testified that Coulson paid for the
stun gun with money borrowed
from Althaus. In one of his initial
statements to police,
Althaus said he bought the stun gun at a gun shop
and paid $8 for it.
Then there is the matter
of a two gallon gas can that Althaus said he
bought at a store the
day before the murders. Police checked the store
and found that no can
of that size had been purchased the day before the
murder.
Althaus also admitted
at the criminal trial that he had lied to police,
giving them at least
four different versions of the murders.
Also, at the wrongful
death trial, Althaus testified that he agreed to
help Coulson plan and
pull-off the murders of his family and did not
want any money. But in
a statement to police, Althaus said he agreed to
help Coulson murder his
family because he would ”never have to worry
about money as long as
I was with him.”
"I do not think that those
lies should seen one by one, they should be
seen as one document
(showing) that Mr. Althaus was not even able to
tell the same stories
in two different trials," said Hauer.
" For this man, lying
is so normal that he was not even able to follow
his own side of the stories.
The whole story was not true (remember the
lie detector) and the
lies in the list are only those, the attorneys
were able to prove by
the two trials and the police report."
The initial e-mail inquiry
The Death House made to the Freebob Web site
was actually answered
by Robert Coulson. The messages to the site are
delivered to him on death
row and he responds.
In his e-mail Coulson denied that he killed his family.
"I did NOT kill my family!!!"
Coulson said in the e-mail. " I would
appreciate any and all
help you could give me by running a story on your
online magazine. I would
ask if possible that you include my website
address so readers can
see our evidence for themselves, thanks.”
What about Bob?
Source: The Death House
http://www.thedeathhouse.com/
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